4: The Game of Kings

It had been years since Rosa had played chess, but over the past few days she had started to improve. She had used a game at the café to break the ice with her 'Baron' the day after that encounter in the hotel courtyard. She had already spoken to the set-builders from Rome, who told her that he was a compatriot of theirs.

"Rosa Figueras Berenguer," she had introduced herself.

"Corrado Alerami." And he had bowed, as if still in character.

"You don't sound Italian."

"I'm from the north - Piemont: some of us still speak the language of the trobadors - like you!" And his blue eyes twinkled. "But I have French, too, and German, and Latin and Greek."

"Impressive! Which university?"

"Nothing so formal. I've German and French relatives, and when I was young, I lived with an uncle in Bavaria. Then I travelled around the Mediterranean for several years."

She pointed to herself. "Art school, Barcelona: fashion design and textiles. I had a lot of fun as a student: it was just a few years after we got our freedom back, and… We all went a little wild! Crazy, really… So crazy I ended up with a husband!"

"You make it sound as if it were a misfortune."

She nodded. "It was. We split up twelve years ago. Not pleasant. And you?"

He held up three fingers.

She whistled. "But currently?"

"No… Again, as you say, it was not pleasant. I wasn't what she wanted. What she needed, perhaps - but not wanted." He flashed a smile. Good-looking as he was, he needed a dentist: mediæval authenticity could go too far.

"I'm sorry," she replied. (But she was not.)

He shrugged. "My first wife died; my second was a mistake - I realised after a few months. I don't think she missed me. And the third… Too young."

"Children?"

"One daughter. I don't see her. What about you?"

"Never had the time or patience. It takes me all my time to keep my plants alive! My husband wanted them, so… It was one reason why he left. In fact, by then, his girlfriend was already expecting!" It was too long ago to feel aggrieved. "So, did you get into re-enacting as an escape?"

"Not so much of an escape: it is my life. And since I was ill, I've had no choice."

"You can't work?"

"This is my work. My life, as I said! I have money, so…"

Do you? she thought. She wondered if it had been from something shady. He had a military bearing: a soldier of fortune? But at times he seemed too wrapped up in mediæval history. An eccentric gentleman-scholar, perhaps?

Now, as they played their game on the table outside the café, she chatted blithely: "At home I design for a small theatre company - and a couple of drag acts, for fun. What I do here is less creative, but the pay's not bad. And it's travel! How are you enjoying it?"

He grimaced. "The writer and director need beating about the ears with a leather-bound chronicle! Balian was past fifty, married to Queen Maria! And that boy - he couldn't command an army in a siege! Can you imagine a desperate people looking to him, respecting him, when the whole Saracen army is at their walls? He's still wet behind the ears!" He coughed a little.

"But wasn't the King just a boy? And dying?"

"The Leper was exceptional! - My God, I wish I'd known him in life! Half-rotted, but a better man than that dolt Lusignan! But this - this pseudo-Balian! When they were filming his defence of Jerusalem - I tried to tell them! Quite absurd! Posing on the ramparts where he could be hit by the first volley, and making milk-and-water speeches!"

Her Bishop captured his Knight. "But he looks pretty, I suppose."

"So did Humphrey de Toron, but he failed to defend his wife's claim or kingdom! And the child - his father was Guilhem, not Guy! And everyone sounds so damn heretical. Which is all very well these days, but then?" And he drew a finger expressively across his throat.

"That's showbusiness! It must make life hard for people like you - knowing the history."

"People like me?" He smiled. "We are not so many, I think! It's not just about reading the right books, or looking for webpages! Practical experience!"

"Eh?"

"Sieges. Battles. I've been both besieged and a besieger."

"I wondered if you might be military. Where? Balkans?"

"Lebanon."

"UN?"

"International, yes: French, Italian, Greeks…"

He had not answered directly, she thought: Foreign Legion? Something to hide? "Check."

"This is beginner's luck!"

She smiled slyly. "Mate." She moved her hand towards his on the table, but he slid his away from her. (It was at this point that the writer and the director turned their attention to them.) Her attraction to him was strongly physical, she knew, but at forty-five, with one marriage and several relationships behind her, she had outgrown romantic illusions.

"Don't."

"What's wrong?"

"You've just killed my King."

"That's the point of the game! I'm picking it up again - you're good practice!"

"Kings should be mourned properly," he said with a mock-serious expression.

"You're a bad loser!" she said teasingly.

"No, don't touch me. I mean it."

She looked at him quizzically, and fidgeted with the chessmen. "Did I make the move too quickly?" she asked, trying to sound as if she meant the game.

"You're certainly fast."

"Well, we're not children."

He gave a thin-lipped smile and raised his hand to stroke his beard. She noticed the palm was scarred by pale, ragged lines, the sort that are made by grasping a blade defensively. If it still hurts, she thought, that might explain… "That's true. But you don't really know me," he said.

"You could be dangerous?"

"I am. Very." He paused, then added with a laugh: "But only to my enemies!"

To be continued: Clues to the character-deaths…